Sunday, September 30, 2007

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ending months of speculation, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Saturday he would not run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, citing campaign finance law restrictions.

Gingrich, who previously said he was considering joining the race, told Fox News the McCain-Feingold campaign law would have forced him to leave his American Solutions political organization if he declared his candidacy.

"I wasn't prepared to abandon American Solutions, even to explore whether a campaign was realistic," he said.

Damned ehtical Republicans and their damned ethical campaign finance laws that can be circumvented by a twelve year-old with a tin can and ball of twine.

C'mon, Newt, who you kidding? You couldn't have caused even the barest splash in the fountain with your entrance. Look what happened when "Mr. Law And Order" Thompson jumped in.

Nothing. Not even the hint of momentum towards a rolling up of the Giuliani juggernaut. Even Mitt yawned, and it takes a lot to make Mitt publicly bored.

And yet, Thompson was the closest thing you have to a Reagan Republican running, which means even most Republicans realize the failed policies of that era, including the ill-starred coup to take over Congress, was a bad idea who's time should never have come.

Face it, Newt, you and your ilk ruined this country and may even have destroyed the entire planet with your self-righteous greed and hatred. "Anything for a buck" should have been the subtitle to the Contract On With America. The best thing you can do, Newt, to periphrase William Wallace in Braveheart is to "Lower your flags and march straight back to the Confederation of Southern States, stopping at every home to beg forgiveness for a dozen years of theft, rape, and murder."

We are on the brink of a great progressive evolution in this country. You can sense it in the desperation on the right to battle any perceived foible or alleged miscue of the left, yet try to scrape off the dog crap of a thousand worse insults. Each time they criticize Democrats or the left, they find themselves with four fingers pointing right back at themselves.

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Matt Santos, The West Wing